The weekend with her family went by quickly, taking Sonja's mind off of Walter's heavy issues for a brief while. They all returned in good spirits, enhanced by the warmth that was not usually characteristic of late March in New York City. Returning to their apartment, Sonja took her travel bag and began unpacking, humming quietly to herself and wondering what her mother would make for dinner.

A quiet knock on the doorframe interrupted her musings, and she turned to see her mother standing just outside the room. "Sonja, I have to talk to you," she said quietly.

Sonja nodded, folding her clothes from the weekend to be washed later. "What is it?"

"Come, sit down," she said, sitting on Sonja's twin-sized bed. Confused, she joined her mother slowly, not liking the wrinkles that had appeared in her forehead. "I just talked to Marietta on the phone. She says that while we were gone, little Walter was involved in a fight."

Sonja thought her heart stopped. "Fight…?"

Mrs. Hamal nodded gravely. "A few boys stopped him on the sidewalk and were making fun of him. They called him 'whoreson.' When one of them mashed a plum into his face, he grabbed one of the boys' cigarettes and stuck it in his eye. He is in the hospital and might never see out of his eye again."

Sonja leaned forward, burying her face in her cold hands. "Oh my God…"

"That is not the end. Walter jumped on another boy and bit his face. He took skin off of the boy's cheek, Sonja, and it took two grown men to pull him off."

Now the tears came, falling softly on the carpet and turning it dark blue. "What happened to Walter, Mom?"

"The police came to talk to Mrs. Kovacs, but since she has been arrested for prostitution, and since the apartment was in such bad condition, they had Walter pack his things and took him away. He is now living in a children's home." Mrs. Hamal rubbed Sonja's back gently. "You can probably go visit him there, but I don't know if you will be able to bring him here anymore."

Sonja was unable to speak for half an hour, holding onto her mother and sobbing into her shoulder. She absolutely could not believe that Walter, who had been smiling and thanking her for the birthday present only days before, had been taken away by police for partially blinding a boy and biting the face of another. She blamed Mrs. Kovacs for everything, for treating Walter like garbage and for selling her body to prompt the boys to make fun of him. And now, she would never be able to bring Walter to the restaurant or to her apartment to help babysit again…

Why, Walter? In a few years, you could have gotten a job and saved up to move out of that horrible place. You could have shown her just how good of a person you could become. Not this. Sonja felt like a failure for not trying to help more, for not advising Walter against fighting. Her mother assured her there was nothing she could have done, that it was bound to happen anyway because he'd been living with his mother for nearly eleven years, but Sonja was still so guilty she did not sleep that night.

She looked up the phone number for the children's home the next day after school and called. When she gave her name and relation to Walter, the woman on the other end said warmly, "Oh yes, he mentioned you. We were going to either call or send someone over to drop off a few of his things he wanted you to hang on to. You can come down anytime to come pick them up."

She checked with her mother, who was home for the day with a migraine, and made sure it was all right to visit Walter. And then, confused, she put her coat on (for it was cold outside once more) and went outside to board the subway. With a heavy heart, she remembered that it was March twenty-first, Walter's eleventh birthday.

A heavyset, smiling woman greeted her when she stepped into the building's lobby. "You can visit with Walter in the family room, dear. It's where friends and relatives are able to have a little private time with the children."

He was already waiting when she walked in. He gave her a tight hug, still appearing the same little boy as ever, as if nothing bad had happened over the weekend. She noticed that he wasn't smiling as widely and that his eyes looked slightly swollen and red, but there was nothing drastic like she imagined "problem children" would have.

"Happy birthday, kiddo," she said, smiling as warmly as she could.

"Thanks. I'm glad they let you come visit me."

Sonja followed Walter over to the small couch against the wall, on which sat a small box containing tissue paper. She realized with a start that it was the very same box she had given him before she left, with his birthday present. Sure enough, she pushed the paper aside and saw the familiar journal, still closed with the keys resting on it, and the box of new pencils. None of them had even been sharpened yet.

"I want you to hold onto my journal, Sonja," he said to her, the smile gone completely now. "I really love it, but I don't have any privacy here. They look everywhere. I don't want them to know about me."

She nodded, understanding his wish. "I'll hold onto it as long as you need. Then when you get out of here, you can have it again."

A wrinkle formed in Walter's forehead, then two at the corners of his mouth, and before Sonja could register it, the little redhead had grasped her around the middle and buried his face into her shoulder, sobbing. She was alarmed at his sudden breakdown, but she held onto him and tried to shush him. The sound of Walter sobbing caused a physical ache to blossom in her chest, and she had to try harder than ever not to start crying herself.

"They're…sending me to, to, New Jersey," he finally managed to choke out.

The ache in her chest disappeared as a wave of numbness crushed her. "Some, some home for…problem boys. I don't know w-when I'll be back."

"When, Walter? When are you leaving?"

A sniffle. "Two days."

She rocked him gently, not wanting to believe that he would be leaving. "Don't worry, it's going to be all right. Listen, I have relatives in New Jersey, remember? Maybe I'll be able to come visit you sometime. And you'll be out of there before you know it, if nothing else."

"I don't wanna go, Sonja."

"I know, I know, but they think it would be best for you."

He looked at her with watery eyes, face ridden with guilt. "I hurt those boys because they were making fun of me and my mom. They've done it before, but they never smashed things in my face like they did. I…I wanted to make them hurt as much as I did."

Oh, God. Something twitched in the back of Sonja's mind. A tiny red flag crawled up a toothpick pole at his last statement, telling her that Walter was not as safe and innocent as she believed. True, he had stuck a lit cigarette into a boy's eye, but she told herself that it was out of self-defense to keep from getting beaten up. Now, though…

She rested a hand on his shoulder, as bony and frail as ever, but she knew that he had held down a boy who was reported to be twice his size. "Walter, it's because you hurt them that you're here. And I know you're hurting, but life isn't fair and sometimes we need to deal with that even though it's hard. But there are people now who can take care of you and teach you, and you shouldn't have to deal with any bullies like that again."

He sighed but didn't argue. "I just thought that since superheroes like Nite Owl can beat up bad guys, maybe I'd be a little bit of a hero too. But they just told me I'm a 'problem child.' I don't like that."

"You're not a problem child, or any of the things your mom told you that you were. Don't listen to any of that. You're a good kid, Walter, and someday you're going to be great at whatever it is you decide to do with your life. Just hang on until then."

She smiled just as the heavy woman appeared in the doorway. "I'm afraid we'll have to wrap this visit up, miss. The children are going to get ready for dinner now."

Sonja nodded and stood up as Walter wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt. "Do you have a piece of paper?" she asked the woman. "I'd like to give him my address so we can write to each other when he goes to New Jersey."

She agreed warmly and returned with a pad of paper and a pen. Sonja wrote her address down and handed the piece of paper to Walter. "As soon as you're able to, write me a letter and I'll answer it right away. We'll keep in touch."

He nodded, folding it up several times and putting it in the back pocket of his frayed jeans. "I will."

Sonja knelt down and set the box on the floor before opening her arms to give Walter one last hug goodbye. He hugged her tightly around the neck, smelling like soap and sawdust now, and she gently brushed her fingers over his soft red hair. Never before had she seen a little boy with such vibrant colored hair, and she suspected she never would again. They pulled away and she smiled sadly at him, those big brown eyes eroding her away. "Bye, Walter."

"Bye, Sonja."

She picked up the box once more, bade the friendly woman goodbye, and left the children's home. Only when she reached the sanctum of her bedroom and closed the door behind her did she let the shield fall and she break down into harsh sobs into her pillow.

When Sonja was able to bring herself to open the journal several days later, after Walter had left for New Jersey, just to check if he had left anything tucked away for her to keep, she was surprised to find writing on the first page. It was written in pen, hence why none of the pencils she had given him were used.

Sonya,

Thank you for being so nice to me lately. I never had any friends before, and when my mom told me you were going to babysit, I thought you would be like one of the cranky ladies who tell me to tie my shoes when I walk down the stares. But you were nicer than I thought and I had a lot of fun with you and your family.

The police said my mom is a prostitoot, which I guess is the same thing as a hore. They said she doesn't have enough money to raise me and that it's a bad place for a kid, so that's why they took me away. I'm kind of glad, but the people here are fake. I don't want to go to New Jersy. At least your mom didn't talk to me like I was two.

When I am old enough, I want to get a job and come back to New York. I don't know what I want to be, but I will go to your parent's resterant and maybe see you there. And if you have kids, I can help you take care of them like your brothers and sister. It would be fun.

The journal entry stopped, and Sonja wondered if someone had walked in, interrupting Walter's writing. She forced that little red flag on the toothpick pole to stop waving in her mind, reassured that Walter was not a problem child who needed extensive treatment to get better. He would turn out all right.

She dreamt of plum trees that night.

A.N.: OK, I know that in the comic, Walter attacks the boys while wearing shorts and a T-shirt, which gives the impression that it was warm outside. However, it was stated in his file that he attacked them at age ten, in July of the year 1951. Since Walter was born in 1940, I've made it so that he did indeed attack the boys in 1951, but right before his eleventh birthday in March, since he would not have been ten in July.